


always better with someone you really love

by meretricula



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Drunkenness, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-04
Updated: 2010-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretricula/pseuds/meretricula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know what the thing is? The thing is. What's the thing?</p>
            </blockquote>





	always better with someone you really love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [6street](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=6street).



> for [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/userinfo.bml?user=6street)[**6street**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/userinfo.bml?user=6street), who requested any flavor of Star Trek.

"You know what the thing is?" Kirk slurred, between his sixth and seventh shots.

"No," McCoy sighed, watching his steady progress towards alcohol poisoning with a mixture of dread and grudging admiration. "Tell me what the thing is, Jim."

"The thing is," Jim said, and frowned. "I don't know what the thing is. What's the thing, Bones?"

He rolled his eyes, and contemplated, not for the first time, how quiet and vomit-free his life could have been, if only he hadn't offered a stray puppy a drink on the shuttle to Starfleet Academy. But to be honest the silence after the divorce had put him off quiet for a good long time and he was a doctor so he was stuck with the prospect of vomit no matter what, so the fantasy never lasted long. He took the last shot away from Jim (for his own good, of course, and McCoy certainly didn't enjoy the burn as the bright blue liquor went down his throat) and started maneuvering his floppy arms back into his jacket. "Come on, supercadet, let's get you home."

"Home!" Jim announced brightly to the patrons of the establishment, who at the moment comprised three grimy dock workers drinking cheap synth Beam and one very unhappy Andorian passed out in a puddle of his own drool at the bar. McCoy refused to go with Jim to Starfleet bars after their first night in San Francisco, when they'd gone out to celebrate landing safely by getting completely shitfaced and Jim had picked a fight with three muscle-bound kids on the Security fast-track and a leather-queen. (McCoy was pretty sure Jim hadn't _meant_ to get the last one involved, but he knew what intentions were worth and she'd had one fucking nasty right hook.) "That's the thing!"

"That's nice, kid," McCoy grunted, hauling Jim out into the night air.

"Well, not exactly home," he continued. "Sort of home. Like, home is family, right?"

"Sure, why not. Would you please _try_ and stagger along instead of making me carry you?"

Jim obligingly stumbled a few feet on his own before lurching back into McCoy's shoulder. "Don't really have a family," he mused. Jim was an obnoxiously upbeat drunk, except he was obnoxiously upbeat about fucking scary stuff. McCoy had assumed he was making it all up - who _giggled_ about a failed suicide attempt at age eleven? - but then he'd looked up the police records out of morbid curiosity, and it had really happened. McCoy knew a lot of things he wished he didn't - commanding officers' STD test results, the feeling of panic closing in when a shuttle took off with him in it, the fact that he was a godawful husband and he was never going to find out if he was any better at being a father - but the things Jim told him about himself when he was drunk were up on the top ten list of Shit McCoy Would Absolutely Do Drugs To Forget.

"But, like, family you choose, right?" Jim rambled on, his train of thought about as linear as his footsteps - which was to say, not very. "You're the best best friend I ever had, Bones."

McCoy swallowed, and tried very hard not to look at Jim's painfully earnest, drunk, _beautiful_ face. "You too, kid," he said gruffly.

"I mean, you're the only best friend I ever had. But you're, like, super-awesome at being a best friend, so I bet you'd be the best even if you had competition. You're all, you know, you go out drinking with me! And you take me home, and you gave me shots to make that rash go away. I bet I got it from that Orion chick in the astrolab," he said, diverted. "Do you think I got it from the Orion chick?"

"I know you didn't," McCoy replied, irritation burning away any lingering low-level attraction. The incident with the rash had been one of the longer periods during which he'd fantasized about a Jim-free existence. Anyway, _everyone_ was attracted to Jim on some level, he added to himself. Probably _lesbians_ were attracted to Jim. "I had to test all of your sexual partners from the previous three months, and she didn't have it."

"Oh. Huh. Maybe I got it from Commander Zulaya," Jim mused.

McCoy choked. "You have Zulaya for advanced theoretical trigonometry! And he's a _man_!"

"So?" Jim looked up at him with those goddamn blue eyes, all sweet intoxicated innocence. "Are you going to make him get tested? Just in case?"

"How about you stop having sex with your professors and we'll let it slide this once," McCoy managed from between gritted teeth. Now _that_ was a conversation that would get him assigned to a mining vessel at the ass-end of space in a hurry.

"_That's_ what I was going to say!" Jim said, delighted. "That's the thing! You're my best friend, and we have to stop having sex!"

"Jim, we've never _had_ sex." McCoy really wished sometimes that he had a best friend who was _sane_.

"Oh. But, you know, if we were. We'd have to stop." Jim swayed closer into McCoy's supporting arm and nuzzled his neck. "It kind of sucks. Do you think it's really better with someone you love?"

Okay, apparently he'd run over a truckload of nuns in a former life or something. "Yeah, kid," he said gently. "It's... I don't know, it's special."

"Huh. I thought you'd say it was totally overrated or something. Closet romantic!" Jim crowed, before his mood snapped back to his weird contemplative funk. McCoy made a mental note to never let him drink Andorian brandy again. Jim was _never_ this morbid. "Guess I'll never know. Can't have sex with you."

"Jim, what... " McCoy gave up. He knew better than to try to have a straightforward conversation with Jim sober, let alone so trashed he could barely stand up straight.

"Love you a lot," Jim sighed, then perked up again. "I bet you love me too! Everybody loves me. I'm lovable. And _sexy_. But we can't have sex," he clarified. "Because that would be, I don't know, wrong or something. I mean, right? 'Cause you're my best friend. And, you know, stuff."

"Whatever you say," McCoy agreed quietly. They'd reached their dorm, thank whatever deity looked out for bitter physicians and drunken charismatic fuck-ups. "Here, lean against the wall for a minute, okay?"

"Okay," Jim said, beaming, and slid to the ground the moment McCoy let go of him. "Wow, Bones, you're tall!"

"For Christ's sake," McCoy muttered as he got the door open, then crouched down to pick Jim up again. Jim lunged forward and put his arms around McCoy's neck. It was uncomfortable but it made it easier to get him upright, so he let Jim cling.

"_Wish_ I could have sex with you," Jim mumbled. "It'd be awesome. I bet you're awesome in bed. You're a doctor, you must be awesome at sex."

"My ex would beg to disagree," McCoy retorted, heaving Jim to his feet. "Come on, princess, let's get you to bed."

"Your ex is crazy anyway," Jim said, too loudly for three o'clock in the morning in a communal hallway.

"Yeah, not so much," McCoy said, distracted by the challenge of _quietly_ dragging Jim down the hall to their suite. At least it was on the first floor. Being the senior physician in his class had a few perks. "I was a pretty shit husband."

"I'd marry you," Jim told him, very seriously. "You take great care of me."

"Don't forget the great sex," McCoy grumbled, shoving the door open and pushing Jim through.

"But we can't have sex," Jim reminded him.

"You have a fucking one-track mind, kid." Normally it ran the other way, though. "Come on, bedtime."

Jim obediently let McCoy prod him in the direction of his bedroom. He probably should have made the kid drink some water and brush his teeth, but he was tired and drained and Jim could damn well suffer through his hangover in the morning like he deserved. "Thanks, Bones," Jim sighed, as McCoy gritted his teeth and helped him take off his clothes and get into bed. "Love you. More than _anybody_. So we can't have sex."

"That makes no fucking sense, you know that, right?"

"Makes lots of sense!" Jim said indignantly. "You're my best friend, you're _special_. I have sex with all my friends. You're different." He flopped back, and repeated sleepily, "I _love_ you."

McCoy looked down at him with painful affection. "Yeah, well," he muttered, and brushed a quick kiss over Jim's forehead. "Love you too."

Jim was already snoring. He'd have forgotten the whole thing in the morning. McCoy rolled his eyes at his own idiocy, brushed his teeth and went to bed.


End file.
